In order to give relief to over 40,000 traders who have filed affidavits to close down their operations by June 30, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and the Urban Development Ministry will file a review petition in the Supreme Court to defer the proposed sealing drive from November 1.

Talking to reporters after a meeting of the Group of Ministers on the sealing issue, Union Urban Development Minister Jaipal Reddy said the review petition would be filed as soon as possible after working out the modalities in consultation with the Law Ministry.

He said the review petition would urge the apex court to defer the sealing drive to enable the MCD to designate more roads as commercial or mixed use roads, in addition to the 2183 roads already notified.

''The government will also urge the court that those traders who have been given relief from the sealing under the September 7 notification of the Urban Development Ministry and the September 15 notification of the Delhi government be exempted from the purview of the sealing drive,'' Reddy said.

''Under the September 7 and September 15 notifications, many categories of traders had been provided relief. However, many other categories of units are still to be provided relief, something that could be done only after the MCD designate other roads as commercial or mixed use areas,'' Reddy said.

Reddy said the MCD had already sent for consideration of the Supreme Court-appointed monitoring Committee a resolution urging the apex court to halt the sealing drive till the implementation of the Master Plan 2021.

The MCD resolution expressed apprehensions that going ahead with the sealing drive could lead to serious law and order problems as traders had come out in the streets to protest against the sealing of their shops.